Now there were four: Laurence whirling back struck one of the men upon the bridge of his nose with the pommel of the short sword he had taken, and then ripped the man’s throat with the blade as his head tipped back.
A pistol-crack came jumping-loud from over his shoulder, deafening in his ear; Laurence felt a few hot flecks of burning powder on his chin, and saw a thin thread of smoke rise from his sleeve; a hole stood in the chest of the man on Emily’s left. Mrs. Pemberton stood pale with the smoking pistol in her hands a moment, then she let it fall and reached to raise the other from the pocket of her skirt; Emily, turning, snatched it from her hands and shot another.
“Captain!” a shout came, “Captain Laurence—” and a young man, his personal servant Ferris, came scrambling over the rocks; Forthing was on his heels.
The last attacker looked at the corpses of his fellows and the approaching men; Laurence caught for his arm, but too late. The man turned his blade inwards and throwing himself away fell upon it; when Laurence turned him over with his foot, his eyes beneath the sooty mask were staring blind and dead.
“Good God,” Ferris said panting, coming to a halt; he held a pistol, which he carefully uncocked and put back onto his waist. “You are not hurt, sir, I hope?”
“Nothing to signify,” Laurence said, looking at Emily, who did not show blood anywhere. He was a little torn: surely it ought to have been his own duty to shield her from danger, and yet in the moment he had not the least difficulty classing her with himself as a combatant, and he could not help taking a degree of pride in her skill and courage; she had been as resolute a fighter as he could have wished at his side. “Ma’am, I trust you are well?”
“I must be,” Mrs. Pemberton said, though she had not let a tight grip on Emily’s arm. “I am perfectly untouched; only, very shaken. Emily—”
“It takes you so, the first time,” Emily said to her, consolingly. “Pray don’t give it a thought; that was a very pretty shot. What? Oh! No, I am fine; they didn’t get a touch on me. They scarcely tried: I don’t think they cared a lick about the two of us; they meant to kill the captain.”
“And it will be wonderful, at this rate,” Iskierka said with mean satisfaction, “if these assassins do not get their way, when you are always busy making up to this Imperial flirt of yours, and paying no attention.”
Temeraire would have hissed her down, but he hardly could; wretched guilt silenced him. He ought have been there; no assassin ought ever have been able to get so close to Laurence. “Only,” he said unhappily, “Laurence ought to have been asleep—or at least, safe within the camp; I do not understand how he ever came to be so exposed.”
He clawed the dirt of the clearing; whyever had he gone to sleep without seeing Laurence properly settled? He thought Laurence had only gone to have supper with the other captains; Laurence had told him to rest and be comfortable—surely Temeraire ought have been able to rely on him. Laurence could not have imagined Temeraire would be in the least comfortable, knowing that Laurence was endangering himself.
Iskierka snorted. “It is easy to say, he ought to have been asleep: he wasn’t, he was nearly being stuck with swords,” she said. “I don’t see that you should be blaming him, when you didn’t take the trouble to look out for him properly. You may be sure, Granby,” she added, “if you ever are a prince, I will not begin to neglect you; not that I am very sorry anymore that you are not, since all it would mean is that people were always trying to kill you.”
“Come, dear one, pray don’t stir up Temeraire,” Granby said, coming from the tents. “Temeraire, there’s no harm done: Laurence hasn’t a scratch.”
“He does too have a scratch,” Temeraire said, “—upon his shoulder; and his coat has been ruined. Whatever was he doing so far from the pavilion?”
“You cannot go calling a mere pinprick a scratch,” Granby said, “and I am sure we will put him in the way of a new coat, soon enough. He went out there to have a word with Roland, that’s all.”
But Laurence had not gone out to speak with Emily. “Why, I wasn’t there,” Emily said, when Temeraire asked her later, as they packed for resuming their flight, what had been so urgent as to induce Laurence to go so far upon the outskirts of camp. “I only came upon them later; I suppose he wanted to talk to Alice. Mrs. Pemberton, I mean,” she added.
“What?” Churki said, lifting her head up abruptly from her sniffing over the packs, and ruffling up the feathers of her collar. “What is he doing with Mrs. Pemberton?”
“Lord, I don’t know,” Roland said. “He likes to talk to her, I suppose because she’s a gentlewoman; you know he is ever such a stickler.”